Reviews, July 2017

The Starmen of Llyrdis —
Leigh Brackett

Leigh
Brackett’s standalone space adventure The
Starmen of Llyrdis
was first published in 1952, under the title The Starmen.

Perpetually
out of step with the world, Michael Trehearne has travelled to
Brittany in search of his family roots. When he glimpses a face much
like his own, he is convinced he has come to the right place. He is
both right and wrong: some of his kin are at hand but they are only
visiting
Brittany. Their true home is far from France.

Five by JY Yang —
JY Yang

I
would love to review a single author collection of JY Yang’s short
stories, but as far as I can tell, no publisher has yet seen fit to
publish one. Happily, the author has selected five short pieces they
are particularly fond of and made them available on their site.

Hiromu Arakawa
Fullmetal Alchemist, book 3

Viz’
Fullmetal
Alchemist (3-in-1 Edition), Volume 3
includes
Volumes 7, 8, and 9 of the original Japanese manga. Story and art are
by Hiromu Arakawa; English translation by Akira Watanabe; English
adaptation, by Jake Forbes; touch-up art and lettering by Wayne
Truman. The original manga appeared in 2004. The English translation
appeared in 2011. Volume 1 was
reviewed
here
.
Volume 2 was
reviewed
here.

Al
receives a tantalizing unsigned note. It suggests a meeting in an
isolated location. Although he is only fourteen, Al is canny enough
to suspect a trap. But he is also familiar with the meeting location
and composed entirely of metal … so Al is understandably confident
in his ability to handle any trouble he might encounter.

Traveller Core Rulebook —
Matthew Sprange

Just
over forty years ago, Game Designer’s Workshop released the first
version of their SF roleplaying game,
Traveller
(reviewed
here
).
Over the years, there have been many editions of
Traveller,
released to varying degrees of enthusiasm.

In
2016, Mongoose Publishing released the second edition of their
version of
Traveller. How does author Matthew Sprange’s version stand up?

Death Comes as the End —
Agatha Christie

1944’s
Death Comes as the End
was Agatha Christie’s sole foray into historical mystery. In it,
she abandoned her familiar 20
th
century England for Egypt at the very end of the First
Intermediate Period.
I
seem to have a weakness? superpower? for discovering authors through
their most atypical work, so it should come as no surprise that this
was the very first Agatha Christie I ever read.

Recently
widowed, young Renisenb returns to her family home in Thebes.
Although she has been gone for eight years, little of significance
seems to have changed. Her mortuary-priest father Imhotep still
micromanages the household (through letters if he is away on
business); her older brothers Yamose and Sobek still squabble with
each other, and the youngest brother Ipy is still spoiled. The older
brothers are married, but their wives have little influence over the household.

Imhotep’s
scribe Hori could tell her this stability is an illusion. All it
takes to destroy it is an old man’s foolish infatuation with a
beautiful young girl.

The Last Good Man —
Linda Nagata

Linda
Nagata’s 2017 The
Last Good Man is
a standalone milSF novel.

Four
months after Fatima Atwan was kidnapped by El-Hashem’s Al-Furat
Coalition, the US State Department has done nothing to rescue her.
Fatima’s desperate father turns to military contractor Requisite
Operations to do what the State Department either can not or will not
do: save the young woman.

By
law, Requisite Operations (RO) cannot deliver a ransom. What the law
will let them do is attempt a foray into the chaos left after Daesh’s
collapse, a foray to retrieve Fatima. Hussam El-Hashem1
may be a mere bandit using religion as justification for robbery and
slavery, but he’s no idiot. Not only is his location secret, it
changes on a weekly basis.

It
would take extraordinary resources to find him. Luckily for Fatima,
RO has those resources.

This Gulf of Time and Stars —
Julie Czerneda
Reunification, book 1

2015’s
This
Gulf of Time and Stars
is the first book in Julie E. Czerneda’s Reunification
series. It is set in her Clan
Chronicles
setting (first visited in her 1997 debut novel, A
Thousand Words for Stranger).

Refugees
without history, the surprisingly humanoid Clan live unseen amongst
humans, who in turn live in the vast multi-species galactic
confederation, the Trade Pact. The Clan’s psychic assassins
eliminate any person unlucky enough to discover the Clan’s
existence. Or rather, the Clan
once lived unseen amongst humans. Now they live out in the open, outed by
a biological trap of their own creation.

The
Clan breeding program was so successful at creating females of
unparalleled psychic power that no male can survive breeding with
them. Hoping that the Trade Pact’s vast R&D resources can
overcome the reproductive bottleneck, the Clan revealed themselves
and joined the Trade Pact.

Hitoshi Ashinano
Kabu no Isaki, book 6

The
sixth and final volume of Hitoshi Ashinano’s Kabu
no Isaki
was published in 2013. Much to my surprise, this volume contains
answers to a few of the nagging questions unanswered in earlier
volumes—just not the answers I expected.

Raven Stratagem —
Yoon Ha Lee
Machineries of Empire, book 2

2017’s
Raven
Stratagem
is the second novel in Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries
of Empire
series. The first novel in the series, Ninefox
Gambit,
was
reviewed here.
Readers are well advised to read Ninefox
Gambit before
reading Raven Stratagem.

The
Hexarchate is far too sensible to rely on the obedience of soldiers
with free will. Instead, every soldier of the Kel has no choice in
the matter, thanks to formation
instinct
conditioning. To see a superior officer is to be compelled to obey
them. It’s a system designed to make mutiny impossible. For the
person wearing senior officer Cheris’ body, it means that taking
control of the Swanknot shipswarm is merely a matter of establishing
that they are the undead General Shuos Jedao. Once they believe they
are confronted with a general with three centuries of seniority, the
hapless soldiers have no choice but to obey.

By
the time the Hexarchate’s rulers discover what Jedao has done, he
and his little fleet are long gone.

The World at Bay —
Paul Capon
Winston Science Fiction, book 26

Paul
Capon’s 1954 standalone The
World at Bay was
the 26th
juvenile science fiction novel published by the
John C. Winston company.

Professor
Elrick has long suspected that Poppea, the third world of the dark
star Nero, is inhabited. The Professor also believes an invasion from
that doomed world is imminent. Alas, aside from his loyal teenaged
assistant Jim Shannon, few believe Elrick. Instead, skeptics insist
that the objects flying in formation from the Nero system toward
Earth are only meteors of some sort.

Once
the objects arrive at Earth, a wave of radio silence begins to spread
along the terminator. Elrick was right, but the price of his
vindication may be humanity’s doom.

The Harbors of the Sun —
Martha Wells
Books of the Raksura, book 5

Martha
Wells’ 2017
The
Harbors of the Sun
is the fifth volume in the Books
of the Raksura
series
and the second half of the story begun in 2016’s
The
Edge of Worlds.

The
quest that drove
The
Edge of Worlds
succeeded
beyond the wildest dreams of the Raksura, in large part because they
had no idea what it was they were searching for. Betrayed by Vendoin
and the Hians, Moon and his friends were poisoned, the forerunner
artifact the party found was stolen, and Bramble, Merit and Delin
kidnapped 1.

The
good news is, the Raksura have a potential ally. The bad news is,
it’s not an ally any sensible person would trust.

Cosplay in KW —
Ryan Consell

[Please enjoy a guest post by Ryan Consell on a subject about which I know little -james davis nicoll-]

Ryan
Consell is a costumer, author, blogger, and educator. He is best
known for his metalwork, genderbend cosplays, and opinions on armour.
He can be found posing on Instagram as @studentofwhim, hitting things
with hammers on YouTube, and writing at madartlab.com

I’m
a cosplayer and have been my whole adult life. I make costumes and
dress up at comic, gaming, sci-fi conventions. A lot of people who
share my hobby do so in relative isolation. I had the good fortune,
though, to land in a region that is rife with people like me.

Weaver’s Lament —
Emma Newman
Industrial Magic, book 2

2017’s
Weaver’s
Lament
is the second volume in Emma Newman’s Industrial
Magic
series. The first instalment, Brother’s
Ruin, was
reviewed here.

Responding
to a mysterious summons from her brother Ben, Charlotte Gunn ventures
north to Manchester. Does he need magical assistance? After all, he
passed the academy entrance exam with flying colours only because
Charlotte used her considerably superior levels of magic to cheat for
him. He made it through the course, but now he must be facing real
life challenges.

Charlotte
finds Ben wrestling with what he insists must be a den of trade
unionists and socialists infesting the textile factory where he has
been assigned to provide magical support. Unless Charlotte and Ben
can expose the rascals, Ben’s advancement up the ranks of the Royal
Society of Esoteric Arts may come to an abrupt halt.

Hitoshi Ashinano
Kabu no Isaki, book 5

The
fifth volume of Hitoshi Ashinano’s
Kabu
no Isaki
was
published in 2012.

In
volume four, Isaki, Kajika, and Sayori braved the Tate Road to get a
better look at Mount Fuji. Having arrived at their destination, they
discovered that proximity does not guarantee a good view of the
thirty-eight-kilometre-tall mountain. What next?

In the Ocean of Night —
Gregory Benford
Galactic Centre, book 1

The
1978 fix-up
In
the Ocean of Night
is the first volume in Gregory Benford’s Galactic
Centre
series1.

In
the far-off year of 1999, British-American astronaut Nigel Walmsley
is part of a two-man team sent by NASA to the asteroid Icarus.
Unexplained out-gassing has transformed a body remarkable only for
its eccentric orbit into an impending Earth-impacter. Nigel and Len’s
mission is to determine how much, if any, of Icarus remains. If
enough material is left to present a significant risk to the Earth,
they are to destroy or divert Icarus with the Egg, a fifty-megaton
fusion bomb.

The
hope was that nothing would remain after the Egg had been used. The
expectation was that a chunk of rock and iron might head for Bengal.
The reality was a surprise: the large mass that had survived the
out-gassing was an alien spaceship.

Heroine Worship —
Sarah Kuhn
Heroine Complex, book 2

In
Heroine
Complex (
reviewed
here
)
superheroes Annie “Aveda Jupiter” Chang and Evie “No Cool
Superhero Name” Tanaka vanquished the Demon Queen and closed a gate
to the Otherworld. Since the Demon Queen’s shenanigans were the
primary source of superhero-level threats to San Francisco, life has
been pretty quiet since that battle.

That
is a big problem for Aveda, because her self-image is tied up in
being San Francisco’s premier saviour. She cannot save that which
is not being threatened. Even if a threat did materialize, she’d
have to share the spotlight with Evie, and Evie’s recently revealed
pyrokinesis is much flashier than Aveda’s acrobatic martial arts.
Not that Aveda is jealous of Evie, exactly; she’s just used to
having the spotlight.

Many
superheroes in Aveda’s position would resort to creating a robotic
villain only they can
defeat
1. Happily for Aveda, fate is going to
hand her a challenge worthy of her talents.

J.
A. McLachlan is the author of a short story collection,
CONNECTIONS
(Pandora Press) and two College texts on Professional Ethics
(Pearson-Prentice Hall). But science fiction is her first love, a
genre she’s been reading all her life.
Walls
of Wind
was her first published SF novel. She has two young adult science
fiction novels,
The
Occasional Diamond Thief
and The
Salarian Desert Game
(EDGESF&F Publishing).

2015’s
The Occasional Diamond Thief is the first book in J. A. McLachlan’s
The
Unintentional Adventures of Kia and Agatha
series.

Her
father’s death after a long illness gives Akhié
Ugiagbe the chance to escape her hostile family. Adopting a new
name—Kia—she reinvents herself as a linguistics student far from home.

Of
course, her family didn’t see fit to provide for her continuing
education. Kia has to do that herself, with one little jewel theft
that she assumes will have no repercussions for her future. Ha!

Hitoshi Ashinano
Kabu no Isaki, book 4

The
fourth volume of Hitoshi Ashinano’s Kabu
no Isaki was
published in 2011. There has been no officially sanctioned English
edition so far as I know.

When
last we saw our characters, Isaki was on his way towards Mt. Fuji, with
the package he is delivering for boss Shiro. The package is a mere
pretext for the trip. Kajika and Sayori are using the fact that Shiro
mistakenly gave Isaki the wrong package as yet another pretext, for
following Isaki.

In
a world mysteriously ten times larger than in our time, what could go
wrong?

Spells of Blood and Kin —
Claire Humphrey

Lissa
Nevsky’s grandmother dies and leaves her three legacies: intense
grief, a large and mostly empty house, and a clientele that expects
her to assume her grandmother’s role as koldun’ia (witch). Lissa
is one of the few (perhaps the only) Russian-style witches in all Toronto.

One
of grandmother’s spells stopped working when she died. This has
some severe consequences for the beneficiary, Maksim Volkov. And
incidentally for a student named Nick.

Justice, Inc. —
Paul Ernst
Avenger, book 1

Justice,
Inc. is
the first volume of Paul Ernst’s The
Avenger pulp
series, which was published in 1939 by Smith and Street under the
Kenneth
Robeson house name.

Desperate
to reach Montreal before his mother-in-law dies, millionaire Richard
Benson forces a plane leaving Buffalo to allow Benson, Alicia and
their daughter Alice to occupy three empty seats. Once the plane is
in the air, fastidiousness sends Benson to the lavatory to wash his
almost clean hands. When he emerges, Alicia and Alice are nowhere to
be seen. The flight crew and passengers all agree that Benson boarded
the plane alone.

The
altercation that follows ends when someone knocks Benson cold with a
fire extinguisher. He languishes unconscious for three weeks. When he
awakes, he is a man transformed.